A Closing Circle
by ncfan
Summary: One more time, one more go around the merry-go-round, and the circle would be complete. The next would be just like her, Strauss knew.


I got to wondering, "What were Strauss's thoughts about the girl who was just like Stella?" Here's the result.

Disclaimer: I don't own _The Record of a Fallen Vampire_.

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Fate has a strange way of acting in a circular fashion.

"Got a light?"

Strauss looked up and glared. Then, he nearly gaped. One word was on the tip of his tongue, an aching, agonized word he didn't dare give voice to. _"Stella?"_

The girl practically screamed of spirit power; _It would seem _this_ is the new Black Swan_. But that was beside the point. This girl… she looked just like Stella. So like her it was impossible to ignore or deny.

Strauss struggled to maintain his composure. His first instinct said "flee" or "hide", but instead all he did was stare. And glare. He hated to admit it, but he resented this girl for so resembling the one he had lost so many years ago.

When she finally did reveal herself, Strauss was strangely relieved to find that he was not wrong. It confirmed a theory he had held for quite a while.

"Exactly! The forty-ninth Black Swan, Komatsubara Yuki. Mortal enemy of you and the queen." She smiled congenially while issuing challenges and threats, letting the cigarette at her lips fall to the ground to smolder like a burning dream. Their dreams were all going to burn that night, Bridget's, Renka's, Yuki's…

Both of the times that they fought, Strauss kept listing ways Yuki was _not_ like Stella. _"Too tall, too scrawny, too tomboyish, too hot-blooded…"_ On and on again. Because it was the only way he could fight her. He had to disassociate her from the one he had loved so dearly, distance her from Stella so she wasn't like him in her eyes.

But it didn't do him any good in the end. When her thin body was pierced with Renka's beautiful spirit swords, it was all Strauss could do not to weep, because the look of shock on her face was so like Stella when she was surprised, it was so like her.

Even when she was dying, she smiled, and Strauss could no longer deny her likeness to Stella. Stella had smiled just like that, all the time. A sweet smile so playful and heartfelt, that it made Strauss sick inside. He wondered if Bridget had noticed the similarities as well.

Strauss had many centuries ago noticed something odd about all of the Black Swans.

In the first, the only apparent similarity to Stella was that the young girl had been raised by the same woman and she harbored Stella's spirit in her body as part of the curse.

It was around the twentieth that Strauss started noticing similarities. They were small at first. Similar mannerisms, the way they spoke or smiled, twitches or habits. Then they started to look like her. It started with small similarities; the shape of the eyes and the mouth. Then the girls started resembling her in more obvious ways. The Black Swan was seeking out hosts whose essences were similar to its core; each time it got closer to the mark.

This girl, Yuki, was so like her it made his heart scream. With the next Black Swan, Strauss was sure, the likenesses would be utterly complete, and the girl would be Stella's living twin. _The fiftieth; it seems strangely appropriate._ The circle would be complete.

That, he supposed, was part of the torture of Saverhagen's Black Swan curse.

"I'm sorry. This is all because of—" Strauss had no idea why the words were spilling from his mouth like pus from a wound, but spilling they were, and it was only Yuki's voice that stopped him.

"Oh, stop it." She laughed softly, blood bubbling from her mouth as she did. Yuki looked at him, smiling gently, her voice softly chiding. "This is all for the girl you love, right? No reason to waste time."

Strauss felt his eyes widen; he couldn't deny the shock anymore. He knew, he didn't know how he knew, but she wasn't talking about Adelheid.

"Akabara Strauss… You're a good guy. I don't hate you for this, really."

The last word spilling in soft tumbling whispers from her lips barely reached his ears as he began to walk away. "Renka…"

Komatsubara Yuki died with the gentle suggestion of a smile on her face. It seemed strangely fitting, somehow.

Strauss smiled despite the flinch he gave at the sound of that last desperate word, and almost felt a tear slide from his eye. Almost. "Thank you." The words were whispered to the moon.

Komatsubara Yuki was closer to the source than anyone ever guessed.


End file.
